{"id":27222,"date":"2016-01-29T22:54:24","date_gmt":"2016-01-30T06:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/?p=27222"},"modified":"2016-01-29T22:57:49","modified_gmt":"2016-01-30T06:57:49","slug":"adventure-in-computing-a-fitting-epitaph-for-marvin-minsky-warthogs-russell-kirk-statistical-emphasis-artificial-intelligence-and-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/adventure-in-computing-a-fitting-epitaph-for-marvin-minsky-warthogs-russell-kirk-statistical-emphasis-artificial-intelligence-and-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Adventure in Computing; A fitting epitaph for Marvin Minsky; Warthogs; Russell Kirk; statistical inference; artificial intelligence and GO"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chaos Manor View, Friday, January 29, 2016 <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the most<\/em> transparent administration in history<\/em>.\u201d <\/p>\n

Barrack Obama <\/p>\n

Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide. <\/p>\n

\"bubbles\"<\/p> <\/p>\n

I got up with enough energy to write about Trump as well as other things I need to talk about, and at first things looked to be going well; then I got an epub copy of Volume Nine of There Will Be War, which should be out next week. I opened Calibre to read TWBW IX with, but it said there was a new update, should I do it. Of course I said yes, but it seemed to be downloading forever. I stopped the download, or thought I did, but then things got goofy, everything taking forever. The first cure for that sort of thing is to restart, so I did. When I did, it took a long time to restart, and when it did, Outlook trundled saying it was opening for several minutes, but it never opened. I then shut down my Windows 7 main machine I was working on; shut it down all the way, and restarted. <\/p>\n

That was the beginning of adventures that devoured the day, and which are long enough, and interesting enough, that I\u2019m going to write the whole story for Chaos Manor Reviews and post it there; it\u2019s as good as some of my columns ever were. To begin with, Outlook.pst seemed to have vanished; or rather, there was a 4g file with that name, but the date of last change was 1\/25\/15. Understand that I was in Outlook this morning. The rest of the story takes more time than I have tonight, but I\u2019ll get it up in Chaos Manor Reviews as soon as I can. <\/p>\n

All is restored to normal at Chaos Manor, but getting there was a long and strange process, involving my Surface Pro 4 as well as the Windows 7 machine I use as the main system. You\u2019ll want to read it. <\/p>\n

I was also going to write about Trump, but recovering from my computing adventures ate that time up as well. I will write on that tomorrow. <\/p>\n

\"bubbles\"<\/p> \n

\n

Marvin’s Epitaph <\/p>\n

Dear Jerry:<\/h5>\n

My last thought on  Marvin , whom I saw at home a month before he passed into frozen slumber Sunday last is this : <\/p>\n

AEDIS REQUIRISNE QUOD <\/h5>\n
LAUDATIO  SUUM  IPSA SCRIPSIT<\/h5>\n

here’s why <\/a> <\/p>\n

— <\/p>\n

Russell  Seitz<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Well done. Very well done indeed. <\/p>\n

\"bubbles\"<\/p> \n

\n

Next Gen A-10 <\/p>\n

Commentary on the effort to find a true replacement for the A-10 Warthog
http:\/\/nationalinterest.org\/blog\/the-buzz\/mcsallys-case-lethal-next-gen-10-warthog-15064<\/a>
Pete<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Close support with enough precision to avoid widespread damage and \u201ccollateral damage\u201d is extremely important in asymmetric warfare. <\/p>\n

\"bubbles\"<\/p> \n

\n

Amazon’s category for There Will Be War <\/p>\n

It was amusing to see just how influential your series “There Will Be War” has been, as Amazon classified them recently as “historical books” rather than science fiction. I blame ‘bots.
Screen shot: http:\/\/oi65.tinypic.com\/spgjtx.jpg<\/a> <\/p>\n

Michael Butler<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"bubbles\"<\/p> \n

\n

Subj: The Mind of Russell Kirk <\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.theamericanconservative.com\/articles\/the-mind-of-russell-kirk\/<\/a> <\/p>\n

This is a review of a new biography of Russell Kirk. <\/p>\n

[quote] <\/p>\n

Two rather different things, both called \u201cconservatism,\u201d came together in the 1950’s, with Kirk at the center of their confluence. There was the Burkean philosophical conservatism\u2014the so-called New Conservatism\u2014that Viereck and Kirk had developed in their separate ways. Then there was the resurgent political conservatism\u2014economically liberal, in the \u201cclassical\u201d sense, with a vein of populism and nationalism\u2014that gathered force in National Review and the campaign to draft Goldwater for the <\/p>\n

1960 Republican nomination. These two conservatisms overlapped, including to some extent in Kirk himself. But they were not the same thing. <\/p>\n

… <\/p>\n

One of these two conservatisms was aimed at getting power\u2014if only, in theory, to fight communism and bolster free markets. The other was aimed at humanizing power by reforming character and culture, and while Kirk did not join Viereck in embracing the welfare state, he applied the demands of humanism to markets as well as to the state. <\/p>\n

[end quote] <\/p>\n

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It was an excellent article, and I recommend it. Of course I was one of Russell’s disciples\u2026 <\/p>\n

\"bubbles\"<\/p> \n

\n

Antipodes Rocket a la Heinlein <\/p>\n

Jerry, <\/p>\n

Once again, Robert Heinlein nails the prophecy: <\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.heinleinsociety.org\/concordance\/S_HC.htm#santamaria<\/a> <\/p>\n

Santa Maria 1.<\/b> Antipodes rocket refitted to boost power plants into orbit <\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2016\/01\/27\/aviation\/antipode-hypersonic-concept-plane\/?iid=ob_homepage_NewsAndBuzz_pool&iref=obinsite<\/a> <\/p>\n

Rodger<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"bubbles\"<\/p> \n

\n

    Wonderful<\/b>
    an Underfable
    by Nathaniel Hellerstein
    Once upon a time, Working Joe was walking down the street, minding his own business, when suddenly \u2013
    ZAP!
    \u2013 there was a bolt from the blue, and Working Joe was face-to-face with a Superhero.
    The Superhero said, \u201cHi there! I\u2019m Captain Wonderful!\u201d
    Working Joe said, \u201cHow are you, Captain?\u201d
    \u201cWonderful!\u201d said the Superhero. He flexed his biceps. \u201cI love my job, my life and myself!\u201d
    Working Joe asked Captain Wonderful, \u201cWhat is your job?\u201d
    Captain Wonderful said, \u201cI go around the world, giving people a diabolically subtle test to determine which ones are good, and which ones are ee-vil!\u201d
    \u201cAnd when people are good?\u201d
    \u201cI say they pass!\u201d
    \u201cAnd when people are evil?\u201d
    \u201cI pummel them with my fists!\u201d
    \u201cWhy, that\u2019s terrible!\u201d
    \u201cYou pass!\u201d
    ZAP!
    And Captain Wonderful was gone.
Moral:<\/b> This moral is false.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"bubbles\"<\/p> \n

\n

“It’s hard to start over at 50 when no one wants you.” <\/p>\n

<http:\/\/www.computerworld.com\/article\/3027640\/it-outsourcing\/laid-off-it-workers-muzzled-as-h-1b-debate-heats-up.html<\/a>> <\/p>\n

————————————— <\/p>\n

Roland Dobbins<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Indeed. With increasing productivity we may be able to lower the retirement age, but not with the present systems; few seem to be thinking about this. <\/p>\n

\"bubbles\"<\/p> \n

\n

Clinton Emails <\/p>\n

This guy does a much better job breaking down the gravity of Clinton’s emails than I did in a previous email. This guy give a mock report and everything: <\/p>\n

http:\/\/20committee.com\/2015\/08\/16\/hillarys-emailgate-understanding-security-classification\/<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u25ca \u25ca \u25ca \u25ca \u25ca <\/p>\n

Most Respectfully, <\/p>\n

Joshua Jordan, KSC <\/p>\n

Percussa Resurgo<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Good attention to details. <\/p>\n

\"bubbles\"<\/p> \n

\n

Edge\/Nisbett article, “The Crusade Against Multiple Regression Analysis” <\/p>\n

http:\/\/edge.org\/conversation\/richard_nisbett-the-crusade-against-multiple-regression-analysis<\/a> <\/p>\n

Very interesting article on why so much research is at best misleading, at worst flat wrong. Particularly good discussion about social psychology research. <\/p>\n

Glad to year that you all are feeling better. <\/p>\n

Bob Bailey<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is worth more comment than I can give tonight, and I will undoubtedly repeat it in another post. They are quite correct; this is why Paul Horst of the UW Psychology Department made his graduate students go to the math department and take probability theory and such; I ended up in operations research as a result. Changed my life. Most social scientists know little statistics except cookbook intro taught in their own departments; and they think they understand when they do not know the assumptions. <\/p>\n

\"bubbles\"<\/p> \n

\n

Go is an important game. I’ve written to you on the spatial awareness of go and how Asian generals would use go in the way Western commanders would consider chess. <\/p>\n

Google AI is now able to beat some human go players and it’s about to face the top go player in the world in Seoul! This is bigger than when a computer beat a person at chess since go is so much more complicated despite its deceptively simple appearance. But, appearances can be deceiving and a precept of Chaos Theory is that simple systems give rise to complex results and we see this with sensitive dependence on initial conditions (another precept) in go. <\/p>\n

If an AI beats the best go player, that will be earth shattering. It will indicate that AI would perform better as a strategist than most and likely all humans — at least under these conditions. But, these conditions happen to relate to geospatial dominance. I would argue we lost the Vietnam war because their strategists were thinking in terms of go and ours in terms of chess. I would argue the Russians made that mistake leading up to the events on 1904 through 1905 and their hostilities with the Japanese. <\/p>\n

https:\/\/gogameguru.com\/30-worlds-go-players-2011-2012\/<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u25ca \u25ca \u25ca \u25ca \u25ca <\/p>\n

Most Respectfully, <\/p>\n

Joshua Jordan, KSC <\/p>\n

Percussa Resurgo<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

This might be significant <\/p>\n

For the first time, a computer has beaten a top Go player. The article implies that the system was able to teach itself to play better, and has acquired an AI version of ‘intuition’, similar to that which the best players possess.
http:\/\/www.wired.com\/2016\/01\/in-a-huge-breakthrough-googles-ai-beats-a-top-player-at-the-game-of-go\/<\/a> <\/p>\n

Craig<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Google has killed an AI milestone  today.  <\/p>\n

http:\/\/gizmodo.com\/google-just-beat-facebook-in-race-to-artificial-intelli-1755435478<\/a>
https:\/\/googleblog.blogspot.com\/2016\/01\/alphago-machine-learning-game-go.html<\/a>
It appears that the approach taken by IBM to defeat Kasparov — minmax search tree with alpha\/beta pruning — wasn’t feasible at all here, so Google didn’t try. Instead, they took a hybrid approach; while they kept the search tree they supplemented it with two separate neural networks. One network, the “policy” network, determines the next move. The second network , the “Value” network, predicts the game’s winner.
These two networks manipulate the decision tree and pair its choices down, making it possible to generate an adequate answer in computationally feasible time. 
Very cool, I think.
Also, if you and Roberta are getting tired of constantly-breaking organic bodies, Australian startup Humai may soon have a solution.
http:\/\/www.techspot.com\/news\/62932-new-startup-aims-transfer-people-consciousness-artificial-bodies.html<\/a>
Respectfully,  <\/p>\n

Brian P. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Very significant in my judgment; GO is much harder than Chess, although the rules are simpler. They use an interesting approach. <\/p>\n

\"bubbles\"<\/p> \n

\n

\u201cI have never heard of anything as asinine, bizarre or stupid in all my years.\u201d <\/p>\n

<https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/checkpoint\/wp\/2016\/01\/27\/the-admiral-in-charge-of-navy-intelligence-has-not-been-allowed-to-see-military-secrets-for-years\/<\/a>> <\/p>\n

————————————— <\/p>\n

Roland Dobbins<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Me neither, except maybe Federal license required to own a groundhog or a rabbit. And grown civil servants to enforce them. <\/p>\n

\"bubbles\"<\/p> \n

\n

Clock is ticking for Windows 7, Windows 8.1 on new PCs as Microsoft focuses on Windows 10 <\/p>\n

I thought you might be interested in this article:
Microsoft has published a list of new PCs that will be supported on older versions of Windows — but only for the next year and a half.
http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/tech\/2016\/01\/26\/clock-is-ticking-for-windows-7-windows-8-1-on-new-pcs-as-microsoft-focuses-on-windows-10.html<\/a>
Sent via the Fox News app for Android. Download the app here:
https:\/\/play.google.com\/store\/apps\/details?id=com.foxnews.android<\/a> <\/p>\n

J<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"bubbles\"<\/p> \n

\n

Common Core abandons … cursive <\/p>\n

http:\/\/nypost.com\/2016\/01\/27\/many-nyc-students-cant-even-sign-their-own-names\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t teach it. I\u2019m going to go home now and teach her handwriting.\u201d <\/p>\n

<http:\/\/nypost.com\/2016\/01\/27\/many-nyc-students-cant-even-sign-their-own-names\/<\/a>> <\/p>\n

————————————— <\/p>\n

Roland Dobbins<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"bubbles\"<\/p> \n

\"bubbles\"<\/p> \n

\"bubbles\"<\/p> <\/p>\n

\"bubbles\"<\/p> <\/p>\n

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free. <\/p>\n

\"bubbles\"<\/p> <\/p>\n

\"clip_image002\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"bubbles\"<\/p> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chaos Manor View, Friday, January 29, 2016 \u201cThis is the most transparent administration in history.\u201d Barrack Obama Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide. I got up with enough energy to write about Trump as well as other things I need to talk about, \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-view"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27222\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}